Australia’s first jihadi bride has had her Australian citizenship formally restored, with taxpayers to pay her legal fees.
Zehra Duman, a former student at Isik College Keysborough in Melbourne, became a notorious online supporter of the Islamic militant group ISIS after moving to Syria in 2014 to marry Melbourne jihadist Mahmoud Abdullatif.
Abdullatif, known as the ‘playboy jihadi’, was killed in 2015 and Duman is believed to have married twice more to other ISIS fighters.
Duman was a key ISIS recruiter on social media, posing with machine guns and on the bonnets of luxury cars stolen by the terrorists, urging other Westerners to join the fanatical Islamist regime.
She also sent a threatening message to a Daily Mail reporter after she was contacted about a number of concerning posts she made on Twitter in 2015.
Australia’s first jihadi bride, Zehra Duman (pictured), has had her Australian citizenship formally restored
Mahmoud Abdullatif , known as the ‘playboy jihadi’, was killed in 2015 and Duman is believed to have married twice more to other ISIS fighters
In 2019, Duman was notified her Australian citizenship had been revoked as a result of her membership of and support for ISIS.
She lodged an appeal for herself and her two children in 2020.
The case was not formally resolved until last week, when the High Court signed off on a consent order which read: ‘The court declares that the first plaintiff is an Australian citizen.’
The Commonwealth of Australia, as the defendant, has been ordered to pay her legal fees, according to The Australian.
It is understood Duman and her family were living in Turkey after she escaped the al-Hawl detention camp for ISIS families in 2021 and travelled across the Turkey-Syria border.
She was taken into custody but released shortly afterwards into the community.
During her time in Syria, Duman used social media to advocate for attacks on the West, calling for opposers of the ISIS regime to be killed and attacks launched on Australia, the UK and the US.
In 2015, Duman sent a threatening message to a Daily Mail reporter after she was contacted for comment.
She told Daily Mail Australia at the time: ‘All you have to know is that the next time I will ever step into Australia, is when we come and make it a part of the Islamic State bi’thnillah.
‘Oh and do I miss my family? Well I think you will miss yours soon (sic). Thank you and have a great day mate!’
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Duman sent a threatening message to a Daily Mail reporter on January 22, 2015 (pictured)
Duman was a key ISIS recruiter on social media, posing with machine guns and on the bonnets of stolen luxury cars
Duman left Melbourne aged 19 to join the terror group. Pictured: Duman alongside aid workers
The restoration of Duman’s citizenship comes almost a year after the federal government advised her legal team it would not dispute her claim to have her citizenship restored.
It followed the winding up of the previous Coalition government’s citizenship cessation laws in June last year, which were found by the High Court to be invalid because they relied on a ministerial decision instead of a judicial one.
The collapse of the laws meant about a dozen ISIS fighters, members and supporters were eligible to have their citizenship reinstated immediately.
While Duman’s was the first such appeal lodged against the laws, the case which brought the legislation down involved Delil Alexander, who is jailed in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
His family launched an appeal for him and his case was upheld in June last year.
Both Alexander and Duman are dual Turkish-Australian nationals.
The government intends to plug the loophole left by the ending of the citizenship cessation laws with legislation that would require a court order to strip citizenship from an Australian dual nationals.
Propaganda pictures on social featured a series of extremist women standing underneath an Islamic State flag
In 2015, a Twitter account believed to be run by Duman posted pictures of ISIS women carrying assault rifles and standing next to luxury cars, head to toe in Islamic dress.
In one tweet, Duman said: ‘US + Australia, how does it feel that all 5 of us were born n raised in your lands, & now here thirsty for ur blood?’
In other tweets, Duman called for violence against ‘kuffars’ or non-Muslims.
‘Stab them and poison them. Poison your teachers, go to haram restaurants and poison the food in large quantities,’ she wrote.
ISIS was finally defeated in 2018 after several years of fighting in Iraq and Syria.
The defeat displaced thousands of jihadi brides who had fled their home countries to join the fight and marry ISIS soldiers.
